


And, Oh, Poor Atlas

by Mount_Seleya



Series: The Book of the Mother [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dissociation, Forced Marriage, Gen, Not Beta Read, POV Jon Snow, Post-Season Six, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Past Rape/Non-con, Showverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11015067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mount_Seleya/pseuds/Mount_Seleya
Summary: The King in the North receives a demand of marriage from the Queen of the Andals shortly after learning his true heritage.





	And, Oh, Poor Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm already well-entrenched into my Cersei/Jon series, but I wanted to go back to the beginning, and explore the psychology that could've been at play when Jon chose to answer Cersei's marriage demand right after learning his true parentage. He's suffering from post-resurrection PTSD and I don't imagine having his entire self-identity upended would do him good.
> 
> Title from "What the Water Gave Me" by Florence + The Machine.

"You cannot go south, Jon. Cersei is playing you for a fool. Hoping your honour gets the better of you."  
  
The words flowed into Jon's mind as if from across a thousand leagues. He did not lift his gaze to look at Sansa. His eyes were fixed on the lean little shortsword where it lay swaddled in a tangle of sackcloth and twine on the table. _Needle_ , he remembered, the brown leather of his gloves creaking as he gripped the sword's blade more tightly.  
   
Pressing his eyes shut, Jon drew a long, ragged breath. Time seemed to yawn into nothing in the still enclosing dark. "I gave Arya this sword before I left for the Wall," he said at last. "She's had it with her for six years. They took it from her. Took _her_."  
  
"I know she was dear to you," Sansa pressed, forbearance in the quiet steel of her voice.  
  
Fury surged through Jon's gut in a molten wave. Eyes tearing open, he pinned Sansa with a hard, heated glare. "She's your _little sister!_ " he snapped. "Don't speak of her as if she's already lost. We will not give her up for dead."  
  
Sansa's back remained an unbowed line where she stood across the table from Jon with Bran seated at her side. "We cannot help her," she said. "The Freys won't kill her. They were promised a bride. But we'll never get her back."  
  
"Arya will throw herself in the Trident before she bears this Waldron Frey any sons," Jon shot back in a fierce snarl. "Robb may have sold her to the Freys to buy their loyalty. That deal ended when they put a knife in his heart."  
  
"Selling yourself to Cersei Lannister won't win her freedom," countered Sansa.  
  
Jon huffed out a sharp breath. Pulled his hands away from Arya's sword. Braced them against the edge of the table. Every time he'd spoken with Sansa over the two moons that had passed since they retook Winterfell had been fraught. Letting his gaze fall, he watched the candlelight dance along the sword's steel for a long, silence-haunted moment.  
  
The beat of Jon's blood hammered in his ears. His chest felt tight, crushed by the blinding, searing force of his wrath. _Fire and blood._ Those were the words of his house. His hateful sire's words. Mad words. Ash-and-bone words.  
  
"I never asked to be named king," Jon grit out once his anger had cooled. He lifted his gaze to look at his not-siblings. Sansa's face was a smooth, impassive mask, but Bran's belied a sorrow far beyond a boy of six-and-ten. Heaving in a long, steadying breath, he added, "This is my will. I ride for White Harbour at dawn. The North is yours."  
  
"You don't know Cersei," Sansa insisted  
  
Jon's lips cracked into a grim smile. His heart clenched. "I will soon enough."  
  
"I was her hostage for nearly three years. I know what she's like." Slender white fingers plucked the letter with its broken red seal off the tabletop. Held it aloft so the Queen's neat script was clearly visible. "This isn't an offer of an alliance. It's a demand for your surrender. For the North's surrender. You'll be her _prisoner_ , Jon, not her husband."  
  
"I've seen the coming war," Bran stated evenly. "You're the only one who can defeat the Night King."  
  
The deepness of the voice made Jon's heart shudder anew. He'd pressed a farewell kiss to an innocent boy's forehead. Now, he'd never know more than a shadow of the quiet, oddly tranquil man into which that boy was growing.  
  
"Winterfell is as much your home as ours," Sansa told Jon, the frost of her voice thawed by sympathy. "You're our brother. The son of Eddard Stark. You always have been. Even when I was too blind to see it."  
  
"I'm not a Stark," Jon replied, his heart twisting in his chest. "Not even a bastard one."  
  
Two days had passed since Bran called him to the godswood and unmade the man he'd known himself to be. He hadn't dared speak of the revelation, not when it seemed he might shatter, melt into the void from which he'd sprung. His father had lied. His father _was_ the lie. He was no man's son. Just a vicious seed that had damned his mother to an early grave. That had flowered in the haven of her womb as his uncle and grandfather burned and war tore the realm asunder.  
  
"He's Aunt Lyanna's," Bran explained, casting an apologetic look at Jon. "I saw him being born. In a greensight vision. She was dying when Father found her. She made Father promise to protect him. So he claimed him as his own."  
  
Sansa looked at Jon. Her expression held both shock and anger. "You're the son of Rhaegar Targaryen?"  
  
"It doesn't matter who I am, Sansa," Jon answered. "No good can come of chasing ghosts."  
  
"You are the rightful heir to the Iron Throne," Sansa declared, as if the thought hadn't crossed his mind. She was looking at him differently, now, as if she could see the pall of the untold deaths his life had cost hanging over him. As if the skin Ned Stark had fashioned for him, and into which the red witch had forced stolen breath, had finally fallen away to reveal the cursed thing a prince's violence had inflicted upon the world.  
  
"Aye, my soon-to-be wife is warming it for me," Jon said, more sharply than intended.  
  
"You _cannot_ marry her," warned Sansa.  
  
"I've no choice. The Queen's terms are clear. I am to renounce my crown and become her consort. We'll have peace. _Arya will be safe_."  
  
"The war is lost if you leave us, Jon," Bran told him gravely.  
  
Jon gave his head a rueful shake. Swallowed around the dry lump in his throat. "I'm sick of fighting. I'm sick of war." He could see despair settle in Bran's brown eyes like ripples moving outward from a stone dropped into still water. "Tell no one what you've learned of my birth. If I can win the Queen's trust, she may give us the men we need. That's our best hope."  
  
Whatever man turned and walked from the room had few belongings to pack for the journey to King's Landing.


End file.
